The present invention relates to a diagnostic marker for kidney disease and a computer program for diagnosis of kidney disease using the marker.
Kidney diseases are caused by pathological lesions in kidney tissues. Kidney diseases mainly include 1) glomerulonephritis due to pathological lesions in glomerulus which is responsible for blood filtration, 2) tubulointerstitial nephritis due to pathological lesions in renal tubules which is responsible for resorption of water or electrolytes from primitive urine, 3) arteriolosclerosis due to renovascular pathological lesions and the like.
When a patient develops renal failure from kidney disease, it is difficult to restore and maintain renal functions even after initiation of therapeutic treatments. In this case, the patient needs to undergo dialysis treatment. The number of patients who require dialysis treatment is increasing recently and it causes a problem of growth in medical costs.
Thus, it is important to identify kidney disease patients at early stages by accurate diagnoses.
In the current kidney disease diagnoses, renal function is evaluated by measurement of glomerular filtration rate (GFR).
Kidney disease diagnostic markers are also used such as urine albumin, type IV collagen, transferrin, IgG, laminin, fibronectin, α-1 microglobulin, β-2 microglobulin, cystatin C, N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase (NAG), L-fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP), glycocyamidine and derivatives thereof and the like (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication Nos. HEI 2 (1990)-288867 and 2001-174459).
However, in order to provide further highly accurate diagnoses of kidney diseases, measurements of GFR and use of the above diagnostic markers are not sufficient. Therefore, there is a need for development of novel markers useful for diagnoses of kidney disease.